


What He Couldn't Reconcile

by oliviathecf



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU, DCU (Comics), Green Lantern (Comics)
Genre: Hate Sex, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Rough Sex, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-15
Updated: 2019-01-15
Packaged: 2019-10-10 12:56:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17426312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oliviathecf/pseuds/oliviathecf
Summary: As if Batman could ever give him a fair review.





	What He Couldn't Reconcile

**Author's Note:**

> I had fun with this. Once again, this is a fairly negative view on this pairing because this is how I see them. I want them to hurt each other and that's exactly what they want from each other as well. I somehow managed to mention John, Guy, and Kyle in this because I just love them all so much, and I can't really write Hal without them coming up in some form.
> 
> Original title once again!
> 
> Enjoy!

League member performance reviews, what a fucking joke. When Superman suggested it, Hal just about laughed in his stupid, too kind, well meaning face. The idea got voted in, six to one, Hal being the only dissenter, and that was just how it was going to be. How it always was with the League when he was around, damn John for having actual Corps duties to do, leaving Hal as the one available for League duty.

Superman had suggested that it was to be a peer review, that the members of the League would review each other’s performances. When Clark said that it was going to be Batman reviewing his performances, Hal actually did laugh in his face. 

“Sorry, Hal. But I picked the match-ups randomly. Don’t worry, it won’t be anything personal. Bruce will just review your performance as a member of the team, I trust him to be impartial and impersonal in his review.” Clark had said, hand a little too heavy on Hal’s shoulder.

Clark trusted Bruce about as far as he could throw him, something that Hal would agree with if he weren’t Superman and couldn’t throw him about the length of a football field.

Hal had tried to avoid it of course. Find excuses to stay out of the Hall, and to generally just keep himself busy. There was a fair amount to do in the Justice League after all, always a disaster to help out with or problem to solve. But he couldn’t run from it forever and, eventually, he ran into a brick wall with his avoidance idea.

It was a brick wall with a face and a big S on his chest, but it felt like running into a brick wall as Superman had intercepted him as he was about to fly away.

“I haven’t received your review yet, Hal.”

Hal snorted, crossing his arms.

“That sounds like Bruce’s problem.”  
“Well, Bruce told me that you haven’t met up with him to be reviewed. So it’s actually your problem.”

The smile on his face told Hal that he shouldn’t try to argue with him, and the hand on his shoulder to steer him into an awaiting room backed that up. Hal felt a little bit like a prisoner as he was guided into the dimly lit room, gently pushed to take a seat opposite of Bruce.

He was in uniform, although his cowl was pushed back, revealing his salt and pepper hair and tired blue eyes. Hal crossed his arms, rolling his eyes and snorting. Superman shot them both that winning smile of his, turning around to walk out.

Clark hesitated at the door, turning to the control panel and turning the lights fully on.

“Behave.” He said over his shoulder, and Hal really didn’t know who he was talking to. 

Bruce looked down at the tablet in his hand, swiping over it. They had been sent a sheet of questions to ask the other person, and instructions on how to review them. Hal hadn’t taken it seriously of course, his review of Martian Manhunter taking about five minutes. 

He gave J’onn a high score. Even if he didn’t deserve it, Hal would’ve given him that anyway because it just felt like the right thing to do. Something about the look on Bruce’s face told him that he wouldn’t be given the same courtesy.

Like Bruce would give him any form of courtesy.

“Let’s get on with it, I have shit to do today.” Hal said.

Bruce ignored him, continuing to type on his tablet for a few more moments. The lights dimmed between them and Hal rolled his eyes, huffing out a laugh. Typical Bruce.

“There isn’t much to say, Lantern.”  
“Well, let’s hear it then.”

The small smile that crossed Bruce’s face was...unsettling to say the least. Really, seeing Batman smile at all was something to take note of. Whatever he was about to say, he was going to enjoy immensely.

“I’ve made no secret of how I feel about you as a member of the Justice League. I don’t trust you, of course, nor do I trust the weapon on your finger, but there is no reason why you shouldn’t be able to earn my trust. Quite a few of your fellow Lanterns have been able to do so, John Stewart for example.”  
“But?”  
“Yes. But, you, however, have done nothing to earn my trust at all. You don’t obey my rules and you don’t follow my orders. Not to mention that you’re reckless and put yourself and others in danger. For me, you’re on the same list as Guy Gardner, someone that shouldn’t be trusted with such a weapon.”

His jaw was set in a small, tight smirk as he typed away on his tablet, glaring smugly at Hal across the table. Hal sneered at him, leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed. His teeth were grit hard enough that his jaw was starting to ache. 

“I knew you’d give me a shit review, you’ve always hated me.”

“Jordan, I finished your review from the moment Clark asked me. You’re not a team player and the only reason you were allowed to conduct League business is because of your unique power set. Something that isn’t very unique anymore,” Bruce said, voice clipped, brows furrowed just slightly, “if not for seeming biased, I would recommend your removal from the League at once.”

He didn’t realize that he had leaned forward until his palms were hitting the table with a loud bang. Bruce didn't look phased by it, typing away on his tablet. Undoubtedly writing something about aggression and hostility for his fellow teammates. But Bruce wasn’t just a fellow teammate, there was something there between them. A deep-seated distrust, burrowed between them that went deeper than either of them had thought before.

“Oh, I’m not a team player? Where’s your team anyway, last time I checked, you were running around with the Penguin while everyone else found something better to do than to spend time with you.” 

It might have been a bit mean, but it was worth it to see that ghost of a smile fall off of his face, that smug look replaced by the cold look he usually wore. He could see his hands clench around the tablet, the creak of leather just barely audible under the roar of his ears. 

Hal really didn’t know why he had been conditioned to think critically of his own actions towards Bruce, when Bruce said whatever he wanted to him without consequences. Hal was just expected to take whatever insulting thing Bruce said, while he had to walk on eggshells as to not insult Bruce.

He couldn’t count the number of disciplinary hearings he had blown off, while Bruce could insult him constantly and not face a hint of scorn for it. It made him feel sick and angry, that combination that he was so used to when he was forced to spend time around Bruce.

That thought made him slam his hands on the table again because it felt good to hit something, because he couldn’t hit Bruce. Hal could picture it though, fist smashing into his face, finally getting some satisfaction. He could feel Bruce’s nose breaking under his hand, feel the spray of blood, and it would’ve felt so good.

But he couldn’t. Instead, he continued to push, plastering a smirk on to his face.

“What, nothing to say to that? Cat got your tongue? Or did she take it when she left you at the altar?”

It was a low blow, but he was full of them. He wanted to push and push and _push_ , until Bruce reacted in some way. Hal wanted to bring him down to his level, wanted to bring him lower even. He wanted Bruce to destroy him, and he wanted to do the same. If Bruce thought he was ruinous, then let him ruin them both. 

Bruce stood up from his chair abruptly, knocking it back with a loud bang that had Hal grinning. He knew he was close to the edge, that it would only take one more thing to push him over. 

“What is it, Bats? No more orphan boys to hold you back?” Hal sneered, leaning in across the table.

The punch could’ve only been more satisfying if he had been the one to deliver it. The force of it snapped his head to the side, the gauntlet on skin contact making a satisfying crack that split the silence as much as the soft skin of his still-grinning mouth.

Hal laughed, a harsh, cruel sound, and it tasted like the blood in his mouth from the cut on his lip. The cut that the man standing before him had placed there, fist curled and ready to leave another mark on him. For a brief moment, Hal hoped it scarred, leaving a brutal reminder for the both of them.

This was what happened when the two of them tried to mix 

Hal laved his tongue over the cut, tasting his blood. He could feel it split open more, a pain that only made him laugh that same cruel laugh again. The sound made Bruce flinch and then sneer at him, fist curling tighter, ready to strike.

“You’re insane, Jordan.”

He wasn't. He was, once, but he got better. Hal turned his head, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the ground beside him, and he wondered why he was always the one who bled when they met. After all, Bruce had thrown the first punch, they were well past civilized, well past disciplinary reports. Why he didn’t do his own damage, but then he thought that he might be doing his own special brand of damage to Bruce.

He had never seen that look on his face before, that practiced lack of emotions crumbled on the floor in front of them. The anger on his face had Hal shooting a red tinged, toothy grin at him.

 _”You’re one to talk.”_ He thought.  
“Lock me up then.” He said, grin splitting his face even wider.

Maybe it was the look on his face that had Bruce hitting him again, nose cracking under the force of it. Hal saw it coming from a mile away, he could’ve turned his shield on or blocked the punch even, but the pain felt better than anything he had felt in a long time.

It was real and honest, in ways that the practiced niceties of the League could never be. That primal thing between them, the need to take and destroy, it had his blood pumping faster. He bled like burst pipe, a gush of blood down his face, dripping onto the floor below them.

It felt good. Really good. 

He wanted to tell Bruce to destroy him, knew that telling him what to do would ruin what this meant to him, because he wasn’t there to do what Hal wanted, ignorant of what he was playing into. Or maybe he wasn’t, maybe he knew exactly what Hal wanted and just didn’t care. Because it was what he wanted as well. Maybe this was some game they played, pretending like they had both won something because it was easier to assume victory than to realize that they were both losers relying on violence as a form of expression.

He thought about Kyle in that moment. The way every part of himself bled his art, everything he did was in the name of creation. He always hated Kyle a little bit for it, because everything he did was in the name of destruction, and he wondered if Bruce felt the same way about himself.

He also wondered if Bruce had ever fucked Kyle, picturing him as one of his sad orphan boys. But that was another question for another day.

Their art was violence, but violence wasn’t an art form in his hands. Letting Bruce destroy him felt like it could be creation, could be molding something that none of them should want.

God, he wanted it. Whatever it was, maybe it was the idea that they’d both be gone some day, the idea that Hal wanted to help that along.

He laughed again, starting off cruel and ending up desperate as Bruce forced his back down against the table with a heavy hand on his shoulder. Hal didn’t resist it, he didn’t want to resist, letting out a noise caught between a growl and a moan as Bruce hit him yet again.

The blood trickled down his throat with his head back like that, and Bruce pushed him back further, making him nearly gag on the taste of it, making him moan because of it as well. Hal wondered if he looked as wild eyed as he felt, letting his gloves melt away so he could claw at Bruce’s back barehanded, short nails chipping on the hard armor.

“Fuck you.” He spat.  
“ _Destroy me_.” He thought.

He hadn’t realized he had closed his eyes until he opened them again, looking deep into the lenses of his cowl. He would’ve laughed at that, at Bruce putting his mask back on to do what they were most definitely about to do, but there was something so entirely sad about it that he just growled instead.

If he were in his right state of mind, not running on sheer adrenaline from the fight, he’d make some smart ass comment about the cowl. Instead, he pulled Bruce down for a kiss that was more teeth than lips, biting at his bottom lip. Bruce growled against his mouth, shivering under his hands, and it felt as right as it felt wrong.

It was their only kiss that day. This wasn’t about that, it wasn’t about feelings, positive or negative. It was about their shared need for pain and the blinding fury they felt for one another. For everything that Bruce wouldn’t let himself say, for everything Hal did say that went on deaf ears. Hal bit his lip hard enough to leave a matching mark on him, splitting his lip and tasting his blood, and he figured that it was the least he could do considering everything Bruce left on him. The things he couldn’t reconcile like Clark wanted them to, Hal understood why Clark had chosen Bruce to review him. He wanted them to make amends, to work towards something like synergy or some other corporate buzzwords that the League liked to use to make them look like they had a sense of legitimacy.

Trapped under Bruce’s huge body and the metal table, hips starting to work towards something, Hal figured that reconciliation was out of the question. Especially when his hands brushed over the cowl like he wanted to take it off of Bruce, wanted to remove some layer between them and come to something like an understanding.

Bruce grabbed his wrists in one hand and slammed them hard against the table. Hal could feel his bones creaking between his hands and the surface of the table, and Bruce broke their mockery of a kiss with a half-feral snarl, teeth coated in Hal’s blood.. 

“Gonna try to get me to submit like one of your fucking kids, Bruce?” Hal said, smirking up at him with his ruined face.

He said it to try and get Bruce to make that noise again or to get another punch out of him, Hal wanted him to lose control. Hal wanted to feel this in the morning, the ghost of Bruce’s hands and his fists and that fucking cock he could feel against his thigh. When someone asked him what happened, he wanted to tell them that Bruce was what happened to him, the taste of his tongue and of his own blood thick in the back of his throat.

Bruce didn’t hit him again, although he looked like he wanted to. Instead, he hooked a thumb into the neckline of his uniform and pulled the light Construct until it tore like it was tissue paper under his hands. He hissed at him, twisting like he was trying to escape, bucking up like he definitely wasn’t. Bruce tore at his uniform until he was entirely naked, hard cock springing free from the invisible barrier that held it from being visible.

Because of course he was hard. Leaking even, and that got a noise from Bruce’s throat that wasn’t something that sounded feral.

“Really, Jordan?”  
“You’re one to talk.” Hal said, rolling his hips up.

Maybe this was what he was angling for from the beginning. Maybe it was what Bruce had wanted as well, but he could never be sure. Either way, it was what he wanted after that, why else would he had ripped Hal’s uniform open? It couldn’t have just been some half-baked idea about humiliation, Bruce wanted him and that might’ve been the best part about dragging him down that low.

When Bruce said that Hal acted before thinking, that he hardly thought at all, it was all because he thought that he was better than him. And, yet, Bruce was the one who brought it right down to that point. His gloved hand was circling Hal’s cock, holding onto him at the base and squeezing like he was thinking about what his next move was going to be.

There was really only one move to take. He started to stroke Hal slowly, long movements of his hand that Hal might’ve called teasing if he weren’t busy bucking up into his fist and cursing loudly. Bruce squeezed his cock, watching pre-cum bubble out of the flushed head of his cock, dripping down the shaft, and dropped him soon after.

He might’ve denied the desperate sound he made, but he was too far gone to really give a shit. 

“You gonna fuck me or what?” He growled up at him, red-stained teeth set in something caught between a sneer and a snarl, giving a name to what they were about to do.

It really couldn’t have any other name, far too rough to be called sex, far too certain to be hidden under a euphemism. 

Bruce tore into his uniform further, splitting it under his ass to give him full access, baring him to his hidden eyes. Gloved hands traveled lower, palming him and squeezing the generous swell of his ass hard enough that Hal let out a grunt, squirming under him.

“You an ass man? That explains some things.” He said, grinning.

He heard the slap before he felt it, palm cracking and making him gasp. He rolled his hips up into Bruce’s hand, only leaking more pre-cum because of it. What they were about to do was only a side-effect from the pain that they both craved, Hal’s words and Bruce’s fists, and Hal wondered if he really was crazy or if Bruce wanted it like that too. If he wanted Hal to destroy him in the same way, clawing and tearing at each other until there was nothing left but the dust of their bodies and their old pain.

Maybe that was what was so funny about all of this. Underneath everything else, they were working together for once. For their pleasure and for their pain, as some sort of fucked up team. 

Hal laughed when Bruce slid a half-slicked finger inside of him, having gotten the fucking Bat-lube from his Bat-Utility Belt. This wasn’t about making it easy for either of them, Bruce adding a second finger quickly and sliding it up, and it certainly wasn’t about seeking out that special spot inside of him that made him shake and whine like a bitch in heat. Bruce kept his fingers straight as he spread him open, slicking him up as just the barest hint of courtesy to primarily keep Bruce from hurting his cock inside of him.

He didn’t care if he tore Hal up from the inside out, hadn’t shown the uniform that he considered an extension of himself any niceties. Maybe Hal didn’t want him to, maybe he wanted Bruce to fuck him dry because he wanted it to hurt that bad. 

Tearing him from the inside, leaving scars on the outside.

When Bruce pulled his cock out, he was as hard as Hal had been, and Hal sneered at him. Of course the hypocrite was hard enough to be leaking, probably had been from the moment he was asked to give Hal a review. He got off on it, got off on all the pain he had caused Hal, every reaction he got out of him.

“Bet you’ll be jerking off to this for awhile, Bats, so get a good look.” Hal hissed up at him, spreading his legs open wide.

Like he was giving him a show, like it was even about that. Even as Bruce slicked up his cock with more of the lube, rubbing the head of his cock around Hal’s hole, it was never about the sex.

Hal groaned when Bruce started to slide into him, head hitting the table underneath him with a loud thunk. He stared up at the ceiling and tried not to react, tried not to give Bruce the satisfaction of seeing him gasp at the feeling of him stretching him open. The burn was satisfying and painful and everything all at once, so Hal counted the tiled ceiling instead and wondered if there were a camera up there. If Superman was seeing the results of his damned peer review play out with the rest of the League, if they had seen Bruce punch him multiple times and do nothing about it.

Maybe they were watching and maybe they just didn’t give a shit about what Bruce did to him. What Bruce was doing to him, sliding into him until he was fully buried inside of Hal’s ass. Hal’s fingers scrabbled against the table underneath him, sliding on the smooth surface, and Bruce once again gathered his wrists in one hand.

Hal looked up into that expressionless mask and grinned, a look that Guy Gardner had once told him made him look crazy. He hoped that Guy was right, he wanted Bruce to look down at him and see what he drove Hal to. How he made Hal feel. 

If he was crazy because he felt no fear, not in his planes or in the face of danger or because Bruce wanted him to be afraid, then so be it. 

“ _Move._ ” He thought.  
“Destroy me.” He said, hooking his legs around Bruce’s hips.

And so he did. Looking down at him with no expression written in that cowl of his, he drew his hips back and started up a rough, painful thing that could hardly be called a rhythm. Truth be told, Bruce fucked him with little finesse, but it was exactly what Hal needed. Maybe it was what he had always needed, a good hard fuck to keep him in line.

He didn’t like to think about that though, didn’t like what it said about him. Maybe that was the one limit he had. But he wasn’t there to think about limits and he wasn’t there to think about himself being the one who lost in their encounter because it wasn’t about that. Not when they both had simultaneously won and lost.

“Can’t stand you, Jordan.” Bruce grunted out, hips snapping forward with each word.

Hal laughed at that, hands squeezing at Bruce’s fingers.

“Aw, the feeling’s mutual.”

It couldn’t last long after that, the sound of fabric slapping against his bare skin, burning him and leaving marks that would last longer than they had. Hal could feel it coming from the way Bruce’s half-assed rhythm got even worse, even better.

“Does it feel good? _Nn_ , I’m finally beneath you like you always wanted.” Hal said.

He moaned with the way his thrusts got even rougher, head once again hitting the table as he writhed under him, pushing up into each thrust. Bruce gave one more hard shove, slamming into his ass one last time, and cumming with a strangled noise that might’ve started off as a moan but ended up sounding pained. Hal finished next, shooting off between them, painting over the remains of the symbol on his chest.

He turned his head, spitting one last mouthful of blood on the table and shooting Bruce one last grin. Hal shoved Bruce off of him, wiping his mouth with his now-freed hand and looking up into that slight frown.

“Did that make you feel better about yourself?” He asked because, for once, he wanted the last laugh.

With a flash of light, his uniform was repaired, and he didn’t look back as he left the room. However Bruce dealt with what they had done wasn’t his problem. The doors shut behind him and he limped off, once again ignoring his problems.

And days later, when Superman congratulated him on receiving a high grade on his review, Hal could only laugh about it.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, feel free to leave some love (or hate) either here or on my various social media accounts:
> 
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